Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Exactly. His knee-jerk reaction is to use the most blunt instrument available.

He probably figured by now the country would be so enamored with his great policies successes that no one would care about the investigation.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Those are policy fixes. On limited issues, like undoing his dumb policy on immigration, or the environment, surgically applied politics works.

The big picture that is ultimately bleak for a lot of Americans involves global economic realities, demographics, and systemic failures of our current form of capitalism which put it beyond domestic political fixes.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Agreed 100%. No sane person colludes with Trump. His name may be Webster's approved antonym for "discreet" and "clandestine" by the end of his term. ("Trump": To in all instances speak before thinking; To blurt the most sensitive possible thing in adverse company.)

I don't get the Flynn thing, either. He's the guy you throw under the bus. He's got something.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

I agree with Ty's response to this re: impeachment avoidance.

Also, he thinks he has a movement. And he might. I shudder to think what sort of shit we'd see if he were bounced out of office. He would not go gracefully. He would hold rallies, and he would declare himself a martyr. And that would rend things far more than anyone can imagine.

The polls were wrong last cycle. They paint a very incomplete picture. Even among moderate Rs, most of whom dislike the guy, there's a distaste for what looks like a DC Establishment hit job.

The refrain from GOP sorts is almost always the same: "He's a buffoon. But this is an attempt at a coup, and that's worse."

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

What is surgically applied politics? What's the practical alternative to getting rid of Trump and Republican majorities on the Hill? They aren't responsive to people like you and me.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

There are no moderate Republicans. There are conservative Republicans, and there are Republicans who make noises before siding with the conservative Republicans.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

You can peel off Gang of 8 sorts to resist Bannon's agenda. It's doable. And on issues like cruel immigration and dumb environmental policies, you'll find limited allies.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

What's the actual evidence that any Republicans will do this?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...fd68b0eb63.jpg

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

I know several high level Rs who have a lot more in common with moderate Ds than right wing GOP people. They're quite unhappy. They wanted Jeb.

But things are so polarized by extremes on both right and left, the moderate GOP in Congress is frozen.

As I noted above, however, on certain issues, like the environment and immigration, these people could cross the aisle.

ETA: Once they get their tax cuts through, I think you'll see GOP moderates speak up a bit more. I think they're just afraid to start any more trouble which might further imperil/delay those.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

There is none. This is purely anecdotal. I fully cop to that. No one will know until a situation involving a Gang of 8 breakaway emerges.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

The Senate voted for sanctions on Russia yesterday, but otherwise, even those Rs who criticize 45 publicly have voted with him.

They are still more afraid of their right than anything else.

ETA: Oh, and you can't do anything with peeled away gang of 8 types about what the administration has been doing with executive orders and points of prosecutorial emphasis. You'd need legislation and that requires majority leadership support.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

OK, when I said "no," I didn't literally mean no. There are none on the Hill. There are so few in the GOP that the country elected Donald Trump instead of a Democrat.

Take your stupid-ass both-sidesism and put it away. "Things" are not "polarized" by "extremes" on the left, and whatever extreme leftist you can find, she will have absolutely nothing to do with the behavior of the "the moderate GOP in Congress," that mythical unicorn. The polarization is asymmetric.

So then I asked you for actual evidence and you repeated yourself. Do you find that persuasive, ever?

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Okay, so these people are so moderate that their highest priorities are a trillion tax cut for the very highest earners (i.e., AHCA) and then more unspecified tax cuts? That's "moderate?"

Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street.
 

Hank, you should buy yourself a lotto ticket tout suite. I would gladly trade my 2 K wins in a heartbeat to have inspired a Paisley reply. My jealousy is as if I were Chef and found out that a client had given you front row seats to see Britney in her Vegas show.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Ugh. This whole story - expanded by Reality's leak to the Intercept - is really depressing on multiple levels. It makes one long for a return to paper ballots, accepting the concept that elections can be stolen by fighting over hanging chads (still bitter? Me?) in exchange for knowing that at least then the crime will be committed in front of witnesses.

(Paiey's back!)

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Yeah, right. Evidence from the right. Are bell-bottoms still in fashion where you live.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Bingo! And by anecdotal he means imaginary.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

I was going to craft a response like this and a bunch of other shit, but I have to take a break from Sebby. If I hear another "the polls were off last time" as a justification to ignore all evidence of Trump's numbers being in the shitter, I'll lose my mind.

TM

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

What does this mean?

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

You're sewww sassy. I just don't know how to grapple with it.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

All true. But those are the cards. Your best hand right now is peeling off the "mavericks."

Like I said, give them tax cuts and they might be emboldened. I know you don't like it, but the bargaining isn't all that great from your side at the moment. Alternatively, stall and resist until midterms and hope for D rout.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

It means the polls aren't capturing the Trumpkins too well.

It's odd, too, because these people should be the most likely of any to still own land lines.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Compared to the Bannon wing? Yes.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Agreed. But in the spirit of removing that really nasty twit in your knickers, I wasn't suggesting any false equivalence. The right is more polarizing. But that asymmetry has been countered mightily with some serious left extremism since Trump was elected.

The GOP's hair was on fire for eight years under Obama, for no good reason. And now the left wing of the Democratic Party is on fire since Trump. But yes -- there are still more moderate Ds than moderate Rs.

It's anecdotal, as I acknowledged.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

I will never get over the chad debacle. (I worked, at the time, at a job that provided a TV for my office, so was glued to the coverage.) But our current alternate fact / fake news-believing set of the population is beyond demoralizing. If only we could go back to worrying about what happened in Slave's kitchen.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

First they lied about Hillary and Obama, and I did not speak out,
Because it seemed amusing;

Then they came for the facts, and I did not speak out,
Because, really, alt-facts? Who would believe it?

Then they came for the logic, and I did not speak out,
Because I couldn't understand WTF they were doing.

Then they passed a bill that gutted healthcare for millions of people without any policy rationale, logic, or facts supporting the bill.


This.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Except that it's entirely self-inflicted. Had he just said, "Foreign interference in our elections is entirely unacceptable and we're going to do everything to make sure it can't happen" and let the FBI counterintelligence investigation play out, he'd be fine (assuming there's nothing to find).

Instead, he insisted there's nothing there, tried to shut down the investigation, bragged that he did so by firing Comey, asked the DNI and the deputy director of the NSA (I think it was) to publicly say there's no collusion, told the intelligence agencies that they're wrong, apparently randomly blurts out that he's not under investigation, repeatedly denied he was with any Russian prostitutes and otherwise acted like he's guilty as hell.

Meanwhile, we don't really know if he's guilty as hell. He might just be a petulant man-baby whose ego can't handle any suggestion that he didn't win fair and square... sorry, bigly... who crybabied his way into a criminal obstruction investigation.

Either way, this shit is on him.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

There are no mavericks. They're all going to vote for the secret senate health care bill. What more evidence will it take for you to reach the real world?

Now you're talking sense.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Please go read up on the 2016 presidential election polling. You don't understand what happened.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

1) Wut. Democrats generally are more energized since Trump was elected, but there has been no move to "serious left extremist," whatever that would be.

2) Your argument before, such as it was, was that there was polarization (not just that "left extremism" is happening, but that moderate Dems are moving away from the center) AND that this polarization would somehow make it more difficult for "moderate Republicans in Congress" (again, mythical beasts) to do the deals you envisaged on the environment or immigration (on the latter, in your wildest dreams). Sounds like you are executing a tactical retreat from that position.


You would need to add an anecdote for it to become anecdotal.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

McConnell can let two of them vote against it. Maybe Collins and Murkowski.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

The polls were spot on, and they were posted here, IIRC. What was off was bullshit analysts (hi 538!). My wife would quote from the times each morning, "today it's 70% chance Hil is going to win!" And I ask how that could be given the polls. In retrospect those predictions probably are as much to blame as anything, giving lefties peace to vote for Stein, or Johnson.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

If you (not you, Hank, but one) accept that the polls are not an attempt to directly predict what the vote will be, but an indirect indicator that will come pretty close, then it's no mystery that the polls will be off by some factor, and that in a close election this can be decisive. If Nate Silver says, there's a 70% chance that HRC is going to win, then he's saying, on the same factual predicate, there's a 30% chance that Trump is going to win. If I say there's a 50% chance that I'll flip this coin and it's heads, and then it's tails, it doesn't mean that I was wrong. It Nate Silver's case, an advantage or disadvantage of his art form is that it's completely untestable. When Trump won, was Silver wrong or was it just the less likely outcome coming to pass? You can't tell.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

I couldn't possibly ever agree with you more.

TM

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

The guy who taught me to do litigation, when asked by a client to predict a % chance of winning, would say: "I won't, I'll tell you you have a good case, but I'm not going to guess a percent. Besides, if I say there's only a 10% Chance you'll lose, if you lose you still lose 100%."

Predictions are dangerous and stupid. I know one person who voted third party and he pointed to the prediction to justify the vote.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/u...rump.html?_r=0

If you're argument is the national popular vote polls were spot-on, but the state polls were off, I buy that: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...tive.html?_r=0

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

Yup. Exactly right.

Look, I admit there were turns when I was overconfident. But we all understand that there are even while there are some morons out there who may have voted third party even knowing it would elect Trump, many of the morons who voted third party did so believing there was no risk to it, and we should have all been more vigilant.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

My line on this (and I do a lot less litigation), is that before I tell them what I think of their case they should remember that three quarters of all litigants lose. Then I pause and they look at me quizzically, and I say, half of them lose the case, half of them win the case, and of the half that won half of those spend more time and money on the case than it was worth, so they still lose.

Then I tell them their odds depend mostly on things we won't know until the case is over, so it's senseless to try to guess them today.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

I couldn't agree more. He's grasping defeat from the jaws of victory. And Chapter 11 doesn't protect one here.

Re: You've got no love for the underdog/That's why you will not survive...
 

It was only 7 months ago. I posted polls HERE from realclearpolitics that showed Michigan and Pa were in play. Obama and hil were in the both states the week before the election. The last time Mi saw Obama in 2008 was September. The dems knew there was trouble. And I also posted totals showing if Hil lost EITHER Mi or Pa Trump would win.

Those are facts. And realclearpolitics posts raw polls and averages. The times was off, but the polls were not.